Programming in Lua, fourth edition

Programming in Lua is an amazing textbook. It effortlessly illuminates the "scary parts" of Lua, exposing the powerful features that are often overlooked by casual users. The read is simple and the first 18 chapters can be absorbed by anyone with basic knowledge of programming in about twenty to thirty minutes (the balance of the book outlines more advanced features and the interface to C).If you're new to programming, PIL will guide you through fundamental concepts and the examples at the end of each chapter are easy to digest. Lua has an interactive shell making it fun to test the commands as you read.If you're at all curious about Lua, this book is your definitive guide. The answers to questions about using Lua are intrinsically answered in the way the book is written. For me, the cost of the purchase has been easily outweighed by the time I have saved *not* having to search the Internet (and attempt to infer an answer from an API reference). That advantage lets me get on with writing my IoT platform and learning to script Roblox worlds in Lua with for my son.

Excellent book for future programmers.

I was looking for a simple lisp-like scripting language with C-like syntax.... was convinced I had to invent my own until I found Lua. Yes, there are a few slight warts here and there, but I am sure there are good historic reasons.The book itself is not bad at all, breezy quick read, excellent for getting the gist. If you are new to programming, this is NOT a good starting point. This book meanders through various topics and is not very good at starting at the beginning. So the examples use operators you have not seen yet and you are left guessing as to the underlying paradigm... Sadly, par for the course in this field. Just put the mysteries on your stack as you read, they will be revealed later!But hey, I am happy to learn how the original author sees things.

EXCELENTE ESTADO

Is just as advertised and what you'd expect it to contain

This was a very good textbook. It contains the most important information about programming in Lua and has plenty of examples.

This is a great book for all Lua programmers. There is a free version online (of an earlier edition), but I purchased the book mostly to support the author. I'm glad that I did, because this newest edition is even better than the online reference. I've read it twice. The Lua programming language is very fun and great for what it does. Highly recommend this book.

The book goes straight into complex problems without explaining the core fundamentals. If you don’t have previous knowledge then you will have trouble understanding the concepts.